With his speech tonight at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Hasan Minhaj provided better “The Daily Show” marketing than anything Comedy Central has done since Jon Stewart left the show. He also turned in the best WHCD speech since fellow “Daily Show” alum Stephen Colbert in 2006.

But where Colbert’s masterpiece performance came from insulting George W. Bush, a sitting president, to his face – and in the process making it OK for the rest of the media to admit maybe Bush wasn’t a very good president — Minhaj’s performance tonight shined for what amounts to the opposite reason. Though Minhaj did spend some time laying into President Trump with very good zings, the bulk of his speech focused the media, telling them straight up that despite the Trump administration’s open hostility, they’re not doing as remotely good a job as they should.

Minhaj softened up the crowd by opening with some jokes at the expense of USA Today, a paper he said is “what happens when the coupon section takes over the newspaper.” That drew polite, but nervous laughter, since USA Today was in the room, and the crowd was rightly inclined to show some professional courtesy. But what they might not have expected is that Minhaj was coming for them next.

After 10 minutes or so talking about the Trump administration, Minhaj turned his attention back to the press. And as with Trump – about whom he said “every time Trump goes golfing the headline should read ‘Trump golfing: apocalypse delayed'” – he pulled zero punches.

“Unlike Anderson Cooper’s bone structure, you have been far from perfect,” Minhaj began. “Remember election night? That was your Steve Harvey Miss Universe moment… Because it was all fun and games with Obama, right? You were covering an adult who could speak English. And now you’ve got to take your game to a whole new level. It’s like if a bunch of stripper cops had to solve a real-life murder.”

At this point the mood in the room turned, and from then on whenever the camera panned to the crowd it showed a sea of polite, but indisputably stonefaced silence.

Minhaj plugged on anyway. Next he took a swipe Fox News, noting the network’s in-progress sexual harassment crisis and its well-known ideological bent. “I’m amazed you even showed up. How are you here in public? It’s hard to trust you guys when you backed a man like Bill O’reilly for years,” he said. “But it finally happened. Bill O’Reilly has been fired. But then you gave him a $25 million severance package, making it the only package he won’t force a woman to touch.”

“I like the watch Fox News for the same reason I like to play ‘Call of Duty.’ I like to turn my brain off and watch strangers insult my family heritage,” Minhaj added.

Next up, MSNBC, a network Minhaj eviscerated for its inconsistent editorial focus, and for coverage of Trump administration scandals he said bordered on conspiracy theories. “It’s hard to trust you guys when you send us so many mixed messages. You tell us the prison industrial complex is the problem, and then air five straight hours of ‘Lock Up.’ You can’t be mad at corporations profiting off of minorities in prison, when you’re a corporation profiting off of minorities in prison,” he said.

“Please tell Rachel Maddow to please chill about Trump’s tax returns,” Minhaj continued. “There isn’t going to be a line that says ‘Bribes from Russia’… I want to root you guys but you’re turning into conspiracy theorists every night.”

“By the end of the year, you’ll all have tin foil hats and jars of urine by your desks.”

Finally, Minhaj hit CNN. Rather than ideological bent or tone, he went after that network’s style of news coverage, particularly the way it packs talking heads onscreen whenever breaking news is under discussion. “I’m not going to call you fake news, but everything isn’t breaking news… Nine boxes on the screen? I’m trying to watch the news, not pick a player in “Street Fighter.’

Another highlight: “Every time I watch CNN, it feels like you’re assigning me homework. ‘Is Trump a Russian spy?Tweet us at @AC360.’ No, you tell me. I’m watching the news. But it feels like I’m watching CNN watch the news. Just take an hour. Figure out what you want to say, then go on the air.”

It went on thus for several more minutes, with Minhaj continuing to twist the screws, despite getting almost no laughs from the crowd, something he acknowledged more than once during his speech. This included a joke about how the press is being treated like a racial minority, before reminding the crowd that “you guys are super white.”

But the killing blow came at the end, when Minhaj revealed the surprising fact that he was specifically asked by the White House Correspondents’ Association not to insult Donald Trump:

“I was asked to not roast the president and the administration in their absentia, and I completely understand that. We are in a very strange situation where there’s a very combative relationship between the press and the president, but now that you guys are minorities, just for this moment, you might understand the position I was in and it’s the same position a lot of minority kids feel in this country. It’s ‘do I come up here and just try to fit in and not ruffle any feathers’ or ‘do I say how I really feel?’ Because this event is about celebrating the First Amendment and free speech. Free speech is the foundation of an open and liberal democracy. From college campuses to the White House. Only in america can a first generation Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president. The orange man behind the Muslim ban.”

And that’s the brilliance of Minhaj’s performance. Whatever the merits of the WHCD’s request not to insult the president, for the audience at home (at least myself) it was galling that the organization throwing a party ostensibly intended to celebrate its role promoting the First Amendment tried to avoid ruffling powerful feathers. But what made the moment work so well wasn’t that Minhaj called them out for what could be described as mild hypocrisy, it was that he was nice about it, and instead used it as a teachable moment.

“The president didn’t show up because Donald Trump doesn’t care about free speech. The man who tweets everything that enters his head refuses to acknoweldge the amendment that allows him to do it. Think about it. It’s almost, what is it, 11? It’s 11 p.m. right now. In four hours, Donald Trump will be tweeting about how bad Nikki Minaj bombed at this dinner and he will be doing it completely sober. And that’s his right. And I’m proud that all of us are here tonight to defend that right, even if the man in the White House never would.”

It’s one thing to tell the truth to power. But telling the truth to people who think of themselves as telling truth to power is something else entirely. That Minhaj did it graciously and hilariously was a hard trick to pull off. It’s not as cathartic as Colbert’s 2006 speech was, but it felt just as urgent. He’ll never be invited back, but he probably won “The Daily Show” quite a few returned viewers.

We’re in for at least (probably) two more years of Donald Trump as President of the United States. That means lots of bad things and one particularly great thing: We’re in for a lot more Alec Baldwin impersonations of Trump on “Saturday Night Live.” From the often ridiculous phrases to the weird outbursts, “SNL” has captured all of it. In fact, the sketches often seem to struggle to surpass reality in terms of absurdity. But they get there. Here’s a list of every Baldwin-as-Trump “SNL” sketch, ranked from least to most hilarious, with links to the sketches.

NBC

29. Trump’s Classroom Cold Open (Dec. 3, 2016)

Trump retweets ridiculous people, like a 16-year-old and a white supremacist. This one’s sadder than it is funny, though, because most of it doesn’t even require jokes. You can watch that sketch here.

NBC

28. Donald Trump Prepares Cold Open (Nov. 19, 2016)

Fresh off winning the election, Trump’s completely unprepared. We already know that Mike Pence will do everything, but good effort, “SNL.” You can watch that sketch here.

NBC

27. Trump’s Christmas Cold Open (Dec. 17, 2016)

Vladimir Putin and Rex Tillerson drop by Trump Tower for Christmas. This one definitely brings to mind the phrase, “No puppet, no puppet.” It's also, perhaps, the most outright terrifying of all of these. You can watch that sketch here.

NBC

26. The O'Reilly Factor with Donald Trump (April 8, 2017)

Alec Baldwin played both a scandalized Bill O'Reilly and Trump, who appeared on O'Reilly's show to defend him. A clueless Trump is a nice addition to this one but he's ultimately just an addition to another gag. You can watch the sketch here.

The first debate really found Baldwin hitting the Trump stride. It’s mostly just him shouting “Gina” in a very insistent tone (his weird pronunciation of "China"). “Yuge Gina” gets a lot of mileage though. You can watch that sketch here.

"SNL" made good on Trump's all-caps "SEE YOU IN COURT" tweet by taking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to "The People's Court." But Judge Milian hassling Trump about his travel ban was a bit too short to really take off. Watch the sketch here.

After a tough White House Press Briefing, Melissa McCarthy's Press Secretary Sean Spicer rode his motorized podium to New York to confront Trump on lies. The pair wound up making out. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

20. Donald Trump Phoenix Rally Cold Open (Aug. 24, 2016)

Trump gives a goodbye to Steve Bannon and pledges to build the Wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and make the American tax payer pay for it. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

19. Trump's People (April 8, 2017)

Trump checks in with rural white Americans after ordering an airstrike on Syria. Desperate to keep everyone happy, he promises everyone will have coal jobs for the rest of their lives and that he'll slash minimum wage. The final joke about "finger chili" is a standout moment. Watch the sketch right here.

NBC

18. Press Conference With Baltic Leaders (April 7, 2018)

Trump meets with leaders from the Baltics and gets so bored that he finally tells America what he really thinks about the presidency. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

17. Fox & Friends Cold Open (Feb. 5)

Trump called in to his favorite show, Fox News' "Fox & Friends," for a quick pick-me-up after his State of the Union address. Trump isn't the complete focus of this one, but when he shows up to tout the address, he gets in some good jokes -- like how "people" are saying the SOTU was better than Martin Luther King's "I Dream of Jeannie" speech. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

16. VP Debate Cold Open (Oct. 8, 2o16)

Trump nabs the spotlight from the vice presidential debate and realizes he needs to be a lot more careful about talking about sexually assaulting people while wearing hot mics. Describing himself as a gross groping hurricane is hilariously cringe-worthy. You can watch that sketch here.

Trump spoke to American troops to rally them in a battle against super-powerful space aliens. Unfortunately, Trump's old standbys like "we don't win anymore" and "we're going to bring coal back" were not all that helpful. Most of the rhetoric is stuff we've heard before, but Leslie Jones' and Sasheer Zamata's moments near the end elevate the sketch. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

14. White House Tree Trimming Cold Open (Dec. 16, 2017)

Joined by his family, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, Trump decks his Christmas tree by remembering the losers in his first year as president. Watch the video here.

NBC

13. Trump call with Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz (Sept. 30, 2016)

Trump fields a call with Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and reminds her that if the U.S. territory should have invested in FEMA Prime if it wanted fast hurricane relief. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

12. Trump Administration sings "Hallelujah" (May 20, 2017)

The final cold open of the season references Kate McKinnon's cold open as Hillary Clinton, making a perfect joke about Donald Trump's week of news scandals. Scarlett Johansson even returned for a quick guest appearance to reprise her role as Ivanka Trump. Watch it here.

NBC

11. Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump Cold Open (Nov. 5, 2016)

CNN doesn’t care that Trump literally kisses the FBI, Putin and the KKK, instead pestering Hillary about emails. Alec and Kate heartwarming run through Times Square is the real sweet spot of the sketch. You can watch that sketch here.

After a week of reports about infighting between Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner, "SNL" pits the two advisers against each other in to see who will be eliminated. Spoiler alert: It's Bannon. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

9. Donald Trump Trucker Rally Did Cold Open (Oct. 14, 2017)

Baldwin's Trump continues to make Vice President Mike Pence (Beck Bennett) walk out of things in protest, including a basketball game, a Starbucks and a gay wedding. Watch the sketch here.

Of all the debates, the second was the funniest. Trump lurking in the background and slipping past Hillary like he’s the shark in a “Jaws” movie completely captures the awkwardness of the real event. You can watch that sketch here.

Riffing on the finale of "The Sopranos," Trump meets with members of his inner circle at a restaurant, including Ben Stiller's Michael Cohen, only to find Robert De Niro's Robert Mueller watching him. Check out the sketch here.

NBC

5. Donald Trump Press Conference Cold Open (Jan. 14, 2017)

It might be the lowest-brow of the sketches, but Trump accidentally talking about urine throughout his press conference is bested only by the line, “I’m not talking about the pee-pee, because it didn’t happen and it wasn’t as cool as it sounds.” You can watch that sketch here.

NBC

4. Donald Trump and Steve Bannon call world leaders (Feb. 4, 2017)

"SNL" channels two weeks of executive actions and other Trump news items to turn out a ton of jokes that channel absurdity while still finding new ways to be funny. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

3. Donald Trump interview with Lester Holt (May 13, 2017)

After firing former FBI Director James Comey, Trump realized he could say just about anything with no consequences. He tried it out in an interview with Lester Holt. Watch the sketch here.

NBC

2. Presidential Address (March 4, 2018)

Trump addresses the gun control debate and talks about how America is in the top 5 countries in the world -- but lags behind Wakanda, the fictional African nation from the movie "Black Panther." Watch the sketch here.

NBC

1. Michael Cohen Wiretap Cold Open (May 5, 2018)

Trump's wiretapped attorney, Michael Cohen, accidentally calls and incriminates Trump -- along with everybody else -- in a star-studded cold-open that ends with a surprise appearance by the real life Stormy Daniels. Watch it here.

NBC

1 of 30

Get ready for two more years of this

We’re in for at least (probably) two more years of Donald Trump as President of the United States. That means lots of bad things and one particularly great thing: We’re in for a lot more Alec Baldwin impersonations of Trump on “Saturday Night Live.” From the often ridiculous phrases to the weird outbursts, “SNL” has captured all of it. In fact, the sketches often seem to struggle to surpass reality in terms of absurdity. But they get there. Here’s a list of every Baldwin-as-Trump “SNL” sketch, ranked from least to most hilarious, with links to the sketches.